Gaussian benchmark for optical communication aiming towards ultimate capacity

Understand

We establish the fundamental limit of communication capacity within Gaussian schemes under phase-insensitive Gaussian channels, which employ multimode Gaussian states for encoding and collective Gaussian operations and measurements for decoding.

• We prove that this Gaussian capacity is additive, i.e., its upper bound occurs with separable encoding and separable receivers so that a single-mode communication suffices to achieve the largest capacity under Gaussian schemes.
• This rigorously characterizes the gap between the ultimate Holevo capacity and the capacity within Gaussian communication, showing that Gaussian regime is not sufficient to achieve the Holevo bound particularly in the low-photon regime.
• Furthermore the Gaussian benchmark established here can be used to critically assess the performance of non-Gaussian protocols for optical communication.